Yahoo offers MP3 download free from DRM

Andy Merrett Tech Digest news
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Anyone here like DRM? Digital Rights Management is a big pain for anyone who has legitimately bought music and other digital content and, quite rightly in my opinion, wants to use it as they see fit.

Apple’s been slammed for it – Sony too. Now Yahoo has offered a popular song for sale without any copy-protection.

Jessica Simpson’s "A Public Affair" is the honoured track, which also comes with an option to purchase a version of the song with a choice of names in the lyrics.

Though the download is double the price it would be on iTunes, at $2, the price was attributed to the personalisation option, not the lack of DRM.

"…we’ve been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now," Ian Rogers of Yahoo Music wrote on his blog. "Our position is simple: DRM doesn’t add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day — the compact disc) or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform."

However, some analysts believe that this is just a promotional offering and won’t set the trend for future protection-free downloads.

"It’s very, very unlikely that we’re going to see any mainstream music sold without digital rights management, without the approval of the record labels," said Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research. "The labels are certainly not going to go for it. It’s been a staple of their existence."

What do you think of DRM? Is it ever likely to be dropped, or just get more restrictive?

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Andy Merrett
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One thought on “Yahoo offers MP3 download free from DRM”

  • DRM and trusted computing, as it is applied today, assumes that my 84 year old mother is a thief every time she turns on her computer.

    Lobby4Linux recently returned from a two day visit to Washington DC and spoke with 19 Congressmen and Senators about this issue. The fix is in people. While I got the standard glad-hand, everything-is-going-to-be-alright responses, it was obvious those votes have already been bought and paid for. And guess what??? Microsoft is leading the charge in getting their DRM licensed to as many companies as they can sell it to. I personally saw 8 high level staffers desks littered with Microsoft notepads and pens. They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

    Here is a news Flash Mr. “RIAA” Sherman. If you think music downloading is bad now, wait until some soccer mom’s 22 dollar cd won’t be copied so she can have one in the car.

    I proudly admit that I will be the one to teach her how to do it, and wil encourage her not to purchase another dime’s worth of your poison-ladened crap. Go ahead…innovate all you want. You spend millions in R&D to come up with your DRM. It will take us about 15 minutes to break it and publish it on the web.

    You have screwed yourself…that would be about three times in two years now if I am keeping count correctly.

    Here…Much more of this to come:

    http://blog.lobby4linux.com/index.php?/archives/70-86-Year-Old-Great-Grandmother-Hoists-The-Jolly-Roger.html

    It was my immense pleasure to do so.

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